Democrats who can show a direct connection to the peak Trump #resistance movement are winning primaries and scooping up grassroots energy this year, cementing the politics of 2016 at the center of Democratic activism in 2024.
“We’re still in the Trump era. He’s the Republican nominee for president. The Republican Party is entirely captured by MAGA, and we’re still living under courts that were appointed by him,” said Dani Negrete, political director for Indivisible, one of a handful of groups that popped up after Trump’s election in 2017 to channel rampant Democratic fear into votes. “Those candidates that are continuing it today as though Donald Trump is still the threat he was four years ago, they’re the ones who are getting that passion.”
Some first-time candidates are campaigning for Democratic primary votes based specifically on their experiences with Trump or his supporters. Eugene Vindman, brother of Alexander Vindman, is running for Congress in Virginia with a promise to continue calling out MAGA politics the way he did when he and his brother blew the whistle on Trump, leading to a presidential impeachment and Trump firing both Vindmans. Former U.S. Capitol police officer Harry Dunn is running for an open House seat in Maryland “by making Jan. 6 the core of his campaign,” according to a recent profile in the Daily Beast.